Honeycutt describes the National Writing Project as "an exemplary professional development model" that--while eschewing a "singular model for teaching writing"--emphasizes a process approach to writing and instruction. However, we must ask, what value does this training add to teachers and how students benefit from this professional development?
To aid teachers, the NWP publishes a great number of testimonials about the way that it enhances teacher confidence. Honeycutt argues that "there is no doubt that the NWP has been a major force in accentuating the role of writing in learning, in reinvigorating teacher enthusiasm, in garnering respect for what teachers of writing accomplish in their classrooms, and in professionalizing the teacher." The NWP continues helping teachers who are both getting started and who are experienced as well as helping to implement the idea of process writing into the classroom.
However, Honeycutt can point to less evidence as to what students gain from the program. He admits that connecting student outcomes to teacher training is itself a "messy process" with research obstacles all to itself; when combined with the difficulties in evaluating writing on a standardized scale, this area of research promises to be difficult. The NWP itself contributes to the muddiness of this research due to the fact that its approach is innovative to research as well as the fact that writing itself is a process that is not always easy to measure. As the NWP's pedagogical focus shifts in response to research and experience, it becomes more difficult to nail down a singular NWP narrative to be tested under empirically controlled conditions.
Where research exists, however, it offers some support to the NWP program. Since the NWP does have a significant impact on the strategies teachers employ, students under trained teachers are likely to spend more time writing and less time studying spelling and grammar. This, naturally, will make their writing stronger and more effective, as well as making students more confident in their writing. Additionally, in studies comparing randomly selected students from trained-teacher and untrained-teacher cohorts, students from the trained-teacher cohort tended to outperform their peers. As such, schools have good reason to encourage professional development among teachers and especially in an NWP paradigm, and there is a good reason why the NWP remains so popular with teachers.
Honeycutt's general theme seems to be that while the process model and its institutions offer something better than the traditional model of teaching, where students are expected to write the entire essay without structure from the teacher. However, in order to be absolutely certain, the educational world needs substantially more information in order to say precisely what works and in what way. As research progresses, so too will our understanding of exactly what NWP training offers teachers and their students.
To aid teachers, the NWP publishes a great number of testimonials about the way that it enhances teacher confidence. Honeycutt argues that "there is no doubt that the NWP has been a major force in accentuating the role of writing in learning, in reinvigorating teacher enthusiasm, in garnering respect for what teachers of writing accomplish in their classrooms, and in professionalizing the teacher." The NWP continues helping teachers who are both getting started and who are experienced as well as helping to implement the idea of process writing into the classroom.
However, Honeycutt can point to less evidence as to what students gain from the program. He admits that connecting student outcomes to teacher training is itself a "messy process" with research obstacles all to itself; when combined with the difficulties in evaluating writing on a standardized scale, this area of research promises to be difficult. The NWP itself contributes to the muddiness of this research due to the fact that its approach is innovative to research as well as the fact that writing itself is a process that is not always easy to measure. As the NWP's pedagogical focus shifts in response to research and experience, it becomes more difficult to nail down a singular NWP narrative to be tested under empirically controlled conditions.
Where research exists, however, it offers some support to the NWP program. Since the NWP does have a significant impact on the strategies teachers employ, students under trained teachers are likely to spend more time writing and less time studying spelling and grammar. This, naturally, will make their writing stronger and more effective, as well as making students more confident in their writing. Additionally, in studies comparing randomly selected students from trained-teacher and untrained-teacher cohorts, students from the trained-teacher cohort tended to outperform their peers. As such, schools have good reason to encourage professional development among teachers and especially in an NWP paradigm, and there is a good reason why the NWP remains so popular with teachers.
Honeycutt's general theme seems to be that while the process model and its institutions offer something better than the traditional model of teaching, where students are expected to write the entire essay without structure from the teacher. However, in order to be absolutely certain, the educational world needs substantially more information in order to say precisely what works and in what way. As research progresses, so too will our understanding of exactly what NWP training offers teachers and their students.